WEBVTT 00:00:01.004 --> 00:00:02.627 - It's "Retro Time". 00:00:04.150 --> 00:00:11.430 And I dropped it. (man laughs) This here is an AGS one-on-one Game Boy Advance SP. 00:00:11.430 --> 00:00:15.250 Now why am I showing you a Game Boy Advance? The reason I'm showing it to you 00:00:15.250 --> 00:00:19.410 is because it has a similar form factor to what we are going to be looking at. 00:00:19.410 --> 00:00:23.330 What we're looking at is also running the same cartridges. 00:00:23.330 --> 00:00:27.446 That was still on, I think. No, it wasn't. 00:00:27.446 --> 00:00:31.890 Great. (man laughs) This is the Analog Pocket. 00:00:31.890 --> 00:00:34.980 They're similar in concept to the MiSTer we just looked at 00:00:34.980 --> 00:00:38.610 and like everything else they've made, it's using an FPGA. 00:00:38.610 --> 00:00:43.820 And that's why this is so interesting to me because they're not efficient chips. 00:00:43.820 --> 00:00:46.960 Not at all. They're very good at what they do. They're versatile. 00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:50.220 There's not a whole lot on here except for a nice glowing green sticker on the bact 00:00:50.220 --> 00:00:54.620 that says Analog Pocket Console black USB-C cable, which I guess is just the package contents. 00:00:54.620 --> 00:00:58.730 So, let's get it out of here and see what it looks like. I've been waiting so long for this. 00:00:58.730 --> 00:01:02.250 They announced this console years ago, 00:01:02.250 --> 00:01:07.250 before short-circuit existed and it looks fantastic. 00:01:08.070 --> 00:01:14.170 That matte finish along with the glossy screen, you can kinda see that there's a bezel around the screen 00:01:14.170 --> 00:01:18.130 and it's a little bit chunkier. This is the GBA SP and it's just closed here 00:01:18.130 --> 00:01:21.763 and it's about the same thickness. Actually almost exactly. 00:01:21.763 --> 00:01:25.260 The GBA is a little bit thicker. It's not unwieldy or anything. 00:01:25.260 --> 00:01:29.250 In fact, it feels really nice in the hand. Oh, I've got a banana for scale. 00:01:29.250 --> 00:01:34.481 Of course. Ah, now we can tell that... 00:01:34.481 --> 00:01:37.760 - [Man] Nothing. - Now the buttons, on the original GBA SP 00:01:37.760 --> 00:01:39.543 they're kinda cliquey. You can... 00:01:40.780 --> 00:01:44.140 Yeah, this one's kinda well used. I don't think the buttons are new, but they're clicky. 00:01:44.140 --> 00:01:47.970 They click in. These buttons are more like, what you'd get on a Super Nintendo controller. 00:01:47.970 --> 00:01:52.400 They've got rubber membranes. So, they've got smoother actuation 00:01:52.400 --> 00:01:55.570 as opposed to these just click, click, 00:01:55.570 --> 00:01:59.500 which I personally prefer. The only thing that has touch switches that I can see 00:01:59.500 --> 00:02:02.750 are the shoulder buttons and probably the start and select an analog buttons. 00:02:02.750 --> 00:02:06.360 Yes, those are touch switches as well. It doesn't look through the battery bay opens up at all. 00:02:06.360 --> 00:02:10.540 So this is a fixed lithium-ion battery. It looks like we've got a power button here 00:02:10.540 --> 00:02:14.960 plus add/minus volume. Speaker on that side and another speaker on this side. 00:02:14.960 --> 00:02:19.370 So we've got stereo speakers. USB type C, headphone Jack 00:02:19.370 --> 00:02:22.430 and a link cable port. 00:02:22.430 --> 00:02:26.470 The same link cable port. We'll be testing that later. 00:02:26.470 --> 00:02:29.930 And by default it takes Game Boy style cartridges. 00:02:29.930 --> 00:02:35.280 So Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color and it has cores for all of those. 00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:40.560 It also has cores for the second Game Gear, the Neo Geo Pocket and the Atari Lynx 00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:44.390 which is actually very rare. I've seen a Lynx once in person. 00:02:44.390 --> 00:02:49.900 In this case, this is a Game Boy Advanced cartridge. It's an Everdrive GBA. It's got one of these nice little micro SD cards in it 00:02:49.900 --> 00:02:54.200 with games. These actually can put extra strain on these older pieces of hardware. 00:02:54.200 --> 00:02:57.570 So it's actually kind of a good thing that I've got it plugged into something 00:02:57.570 --> 00:03:01.180 that's a little bit more robust. It is a little strange 00:03:01.180 --> 00:03:04.620 to see the Game Boy Advanced Character just kind of hanging out back here 00:03:04.620 --> 00:03:09.620 with a big gap there, but when your finger touches it, 00:03:09.830 --> 00:03:12.900 when you're holding the shoulder buttons, 00:03:12.900 --> 00:03:16.120 it's a little weird. I could see that being a little bit annoying. 00:03:16.120 --> 00:03:20.940 If you have the dock, you probably don't have that problem. And also I think it has Bluetooth support built in, 00:03:20.940 --> 00:03:25.730 so you could in theory, pair an 8BitDo controller or something. 00:03:25.730 --> 00:03:31.950 Although, there's no stand or anything, So that would just be bad. 00:03:31.950 --> 00:03:37.360 The screen is actually supposed to be really good. It's exactly 10 times the resolution 00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:41.360 of the original Game Boy. Which means that not only is it high resolution, 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:45.910 but it's a straight one-to-one scale. It's not going to be interpreted in any way. 00:03:45.910 --> 00:03:49.860 It's just gonna be. So, that's a thing that I'm looking forward to seeing. 00:03:49.860 --> 00:03:53.100 But first, I need to talk to you about our sponsor, Vessi. 00:03:53.100 --> 00:03:58.990 Vessi Footwear is known for being lightweight, easy to pack, comfortable and most importantly, waterproof. 00:03:58.990 --> 00:04:03.540 And in order to keep you moving, Vessi designed their new everyday move shoes. 00:04:03.540 --> 00:04:07.840 With enhanced breathability and added support, this style is perfect for the adventurous 00:04:07.840 --> 00:04:12.560 or for those looking for something sportier. Featuring a pull tab to take them off and put them back on 00:04:12.560 --> 00:04:16.910 these vegan suede lace cages, extra mid-sole cushioning 00:04:16.910 --> 00:04:20.680 and the same waterproof diamond tech technology, you'll wanna wear them everywhere. 00:04:20.680 --> 00:04:27.510 Keep your feet dry and save $25 with our offer code shortcircuit at Vessi.com/ShortCircuit. 00:04:27.510 --> 00:04:31.430 All right, actually I was going to turn it on, but first there's some extra stuff in the box 00:04:31.430 --> 00:04:35.250 that I realized I hadn't talked about. So there's the USB type C cable 00:04:35.250 --> 00:04:39.430 wrapped in this rather Apple-like cardboard wrapping that I approve of. 00:04:39.430 --> 00:04:44.200 A USB type C to C cable is also included. Although I don't see a charger in here 00:04:44.200 --> 00:04:48.480 which may or may not be a problem for you. I mean, I'm ambivalent towards it. 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:52.180 I can't get this out, whatever it is. (man laughs) Ah, here we go. 00:04:52.180 --> 00:04:56.711 Okay. - [Man] Are these stickers? Ooh. - FPGA. Let's just put that right there. 00:04:56.711 --> 00:05:00.523 - [Man] Got them. - Yeah, got them. (man laughs) Let's see. 00:05:00.523 --> 00:05:05.260 Analog Pocket quick-start guide for more information. Clean your game cartridges thoroughly before you use. 00:05:05.260 --> 00:05:09.090 A lot of old cartridges are real dirty. It's probably got some corrosion on it 00:05:09.090 --> 00:05:12.590 and that can kinda spread to other contexts that it touches 00:05:12.590 --> 00:05:16.080 so you should probably clean your cartridges before you try. - [Man] Like blowing it. 00:05:16.080 --> 00:05:19.760 - Spit on it. Let's power it on and see what happens. 00:05:19.760 --> 00:05:22.880 This is not an OLED screen by the way. This is a IPS LCD. 00:05:22.880 --> 00:05:26.640 It looks like it's got a tutorial. You know what? Let's do it. 00:05:26.640 --> 00:05:29.800 Let's let's do this together. Press this button to continue, press this button to go back. 00:05:29.800 --> 00:05:33.620 Well, okay, let's go back. They lied. 00:05:33.620 --> 00:05:38.080 Press Analog for menu, but it didn't do anything. This is a bad tutorial, you guys. 00:05:38.080 --> 00:05:41.853 Hold Analog and press left or right to cycle original display modes. Okay. 00:05:41.853 --> 00:05:45.710 So LCD filters as well as different color palettes. 00:05:45.710 --> 00:05:50.010 Oh my God, it's got an end user license agreement and it's not properly centered. 00:05:50.010 --> 00:05:53.840 Come on. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. 00:05:53.840 --> 00:05:57.407 Oh my God it's huge. - [Man] That's what she said. 00:05:57.407 --> 00:06:00.620 - Oh, (beep) they've got a class action waiver in here. (man laughs) 00:06:00.620 --> 00:06:03.730 So it's got a bunch of systems. Game Gear is listed here 00:06:03.730 --> 00:06:07.700 even though Lynx should also be listed here and Neo Geo Pocket. I'm not sure. 00:06:07.700 --> 00:06:10.700 There's a couple of different things that are built into this. So there's Nanoloop. 00:06:10.700 --> 00:06:14.690 That's a digital audio workstation for basically GBA music. 00:06:14.690 --> 00:06:19.950 So you can hook up to your computer and basically use it for sequencing. 00:06:19.950 --> 00:06:25.820 That's pretty cool. Settings. So we can change all of the different things 00:06:25.820 --> 00:06:30.530 for all the different hardware. Which is actually quite good because the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance 00:06:30.530 --> 00:06:33.840 had very different screens. And even the Game Boy color had a pretty different screen 00:06:33.840 --> 00:06:37.510 to either of those as well. And you can set the control so you can mirror 00:06:37.510 --> 00:06:41.580 B and A to Y and X. So B and A is right here. I think Y and X are right here. 00:06:41.580 --> 00:06:45.313 Wait, no that doesn't make any sense. Okay. 00:06:45.313 --> 00:06:49.540 I was hoping that the Game Boy Advance section would allow you to map the shoulder buttons 00:06:49.540 --> 00:06:52.780 to these face buttons that are here, but that's apparently not a thing. 00:06:52.780 --> 00:06:57.400 There are some games that I prefer that with like "Castlevania: Circle of the Moon" comes to mind 00:06:57.400 --> 00:07:01.570 where it's actually, I think better with four face buttons. 00:07:01.570 --> 00:07:06.400 If I had an SD card with any kind of user made content, 00:07:06.400 --> 00:07:13.140 I could probably go into the library here. But the library will not support things like Game Boy ROMs. 00:07:13.140 --> 00:07:18.140 They're very explicitly not using this for piracy. 00:07:18.640 --> 00:07:21.700 I literally have one of the games we're gonna be playing right here. 00:07:21.700 --> 00:07:25.780 And the reason I have that is because I'm gonna use 00:07:25.780 --> 00:07:29.150 a link cable to see if I can get multiplayer going on this. 00:07:29.150 --> 00:07:32.840 Yeah, that's a pretty bright screen. It's a little squished. 00:07:32.840 --> 00:07:37.600 I think the Game Boy Advance did have a different aspect ratio to the standard Game Boy. 00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:42.230 Okay. So analog GBA, that's just pixel scaling, nearest neighbor. 00:07:42.230 --> 00:07:45.960 Yeah, that's nearest neighbor. It's sharp. Hit right once, you got a original GBA LCD. 00:07:45.960 --> 00:07:51.370 It's got an LCD filter on there that it makes it look pretty decent. 00:07:51.370 --> 00:07:54.480 It's not amazing. I don't think it's perfectly accurate. 00:07:54.480 --> 00:08:00.150 I don't know, it might be. No, it is. The next over is originally Game Boy Advance SP one-on-one. 00:08:00.150 --> 00:08:03.284 Oh, I just happened to have one of these right here. 00:08:03.284 --> 00:08:07.960 That's all the modes. Oh, that's a little disappointing. 00:08:07.960 --> 00:08:12.090 But I guess for the Game Boy advance you're not gonna want that many different modes anyway. 00:08:13.350 --> 00:08:16.658 Oh, that's loud. (game music) 00:08:21.920 --> 00:08:25.950 I was hearing clipping. I'm not sure if it's the volume. 00:08:25.950 --> 00:08:29.180 Instruments aren't amazing sounding in "Sonic Advance". 00:08:29.180 --> 00:08:33.040 Let's go to the sound test here. (game music) 00:08:33.040 --> 00:08:36.223 Let's try "Sonic Advance" on the original Game Boy Advance. 00:08:37.120 --> 00:08:41.013 Obviously you don't get the BIOS boot up sound on the Analog Pocket. 00:08:42.980 --> 00:08:46.413 Oh, okay. (game music) 00:08:48.020 --> 00:08:52.560 Yeah. No, that sounded about the same. Anyway, let's get back into "Sonic Advance" 00:08:52.560 --> 00:08:57.080 to see how that plays. The volume is much higher. 00:08:57.080 --> 00:09:00.700 Holy crap. (game music) 00:09:00.700 --> 00:09:04.200 That's about as loud as the other one was. The colors are darker, 00:09:04.200 --> 00:09:09.520 perhaps more accurate in the Analog Pocket. Fun fact about the GBA, it didn't have a backlight 00:09:09.520 --> 00:09:13.560 so a lot of games actually over brightened their colors. 00:09:13.560 --> 00:09:17.300 So a lot of GBA games, even though they could look really good, 00:09:17.300 --> 00:09:22.670 look like trash on emulators or whatever, because they were compensating for this 00:09:22.670 --> 00:09:27.370 to try and brute force through that dark LCD. 00:09:27.370 --> 00:09:30.220 Okay. There is very little if any delay 00:09:31.460 --> 00:09:35.410 and the buttons feel pretty good. Okay, the screen is real bright. 00:09:35.410 --> 00:09:38.890 It is a little weird how it's not quite the right aspect ratio, 00:09:38.890 --> 00:09:42.710 but I get that they're going for the original Game Boy aspect ratio first, 00:09:42.710 --> 00:09:49.470 rather than Game Boy Advance. I think statistically more people would favor the original Game Boy aspect ratio. 00:09:49.470 --> 00:09:54.003 Let me throw a "Tetris Worlds" into... I guess either one of these, it doesn't matter. 00:09:56.810 --> 00:10:01.380 That's as bright as this one gets by the way. Yeah, so the colors are very different. 00:10:01.380 --> 00:10:04.420 It looks like there's more saturation 00:10:04.420 --> 00:10:08.650 on the original Game Boy and also the color temperature is very different as well. 00:10:08.650 --> 00:10:12.780 Obviously, if you're looking for the original experience, it's not quite that. 00:10:12.780 --> 00:10:17.720 No, it looks closer to what you would see if you fired up an emulator. 00:10:17.720 --> 00:10:21.850 Wait, hang on. Oh, I'm stupid. I was in original Game Boy mode. 00:10:21.850 --> 00:10:25.500 Yeah, there's still more green in this screen 00:10:25.500 --> 00:10:30.480 and none of the colors really line up properly. There might be some degradation, I don't really know. 00:10:30.480 --> 00:10:35.230 But I do think that the way this screen looks is... 00:10:36.147 --> 00:10:39.280 You can actually see the (indistinct) and stuff. So there's the thing you can't see on 00:10:39.280 --> 00:10:43.700 the original Game Boy screening. You kinda make it out. But all right, let me turn this down 00:10:43.700 --> 00:10:48.750 so we don't have both of them going at once. Now the colors are again very different. 00:10:48.750 --> 00:10:54.700 Now, this is more purple than this is. This is a red or a shade of purple. 00:10:54.700 --> 00:10:57.810 Obviously the controls feel a lot better 00:10:57.810 --> 00:11:01.130 on the analog pocket. At least to me. 00:11:01.130 --> 00:11:04.980 Now I'm very curious. This game does support multiplayer via link cable, 00:11:04.980 --> 00:11:09.890 I'm pretty sure. Don't quite know how this multi cable works. 00:11:09.890 --> 00:11:13.094 Why couldn't they use this music for the gameplay? 00:11:13.094 --> 00:11:17.230 (game music) This isn't gonna work with an original GBA. 00:11:19.658 --> 00:11:22.752 - [Mark] It's 'cause it's not Zelda. - Ah. - [Jono] God damn it. 00:11:22.752 --> 00:11:26.100 - That's the problem. Well that's disappointing. For whatever reason, 00:11:26.100 --> 00:11:29.890 it might be that the version of the game that I have on the everdrive here, 00:11:29.890 --> 00:11:36.260 is different than the version of the game we have here. And supposedly this does work in Game Boy to pocket mode 00:11:36.260 --> 00:11:40.170 as well as pocket to pocket. However, when I was poking around, I did notice something else. 00:11:40.170 --> 00:11:43.830 There's this high quality audio option here. You also have things like frame blending, 00:11:43.830 --> 00:11:47.560 which kinda simulates that blurry kinda motion 00:11:47.560 --> 00:11:52.530 on the old LCDs. Well as sharpness filters, which I'm not sure what that does exactly. 00:11:52.530 --> 00:11:56.333 It just says plus three, but I don't really see it doing anything. I'm not sure. 00:11:56.333 --> 00:12:00.130 Also size and position doesn't seem to be possible to adjust. 00:12:00.130 --> 00:12:03.680 Maybe there's still some stuff that needs to be updated. 00:12:03.680 --> 00:12:07.853 Anyway, let's try "Sonic Advance". See if that audio cleaned up any. 00:12:07.853 --> 00:12:10.270 (game music) 00:12:15.290 --> 00:12:19.310 Okay. Well I just added myself as an emulator user. That sounded a lot better. 00:12:19.310 --> 00:12:22.440 I wanna take it apart. - [Jono] Throw all the bits in and see which one fits. 00:12:22.440 --> 00:12:26.663 - See which bit fits. It's a little small, but it works. 00:12:28.400 --> 00:12:32.550 Big screws. So I felt this kinda... 00:12:32.550 --> 00:12:35.970 Okay. - [Jono] There you go. 00:12:35.970 --> 00:12:39.940 - So that's the battery. 15.91 watt hours. 00:12:39.940 --> 00:12:43.130 It seems pretty repairable. The battery's in this this little caddy here. 00:12:43.130 --> 00:12:46.700 There's a connector for it. And then this plate. 00:12:46.700 --> 00:12:50.560 I think there's extra screws or are these just clips? 00:12:50.560 --> 00:12:55.740 I'm not sure if we want to wrench on it too much more though. But it's nice to know that the battery's replaceable 00:12:55.740 --> 00:12:59.970 and it seems to be pretty repairable. There we go. 00:12:59.970 --> 00:13:03.063 So, the Analog Pocket. 00:13:04.020 --> 00:13:10.000 What are my thoughts? The battery life that I've observed so far is pretty decent. 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:15.960 This is a 600 maH power battery by default and it runs for just as long as this 4300 maH battery. 00:13:15.960 --> 00:13:20.000 It's a power hungry piece of hardware, but they made it work. 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:23.264 The original GBA... What was the original GBA's... 00:13:23.264 --> 00:13:27.080 All right, sorry. GBA SP's battery life. - [Man] Seven to 10. 00:13:27.080 --> 00:13:30.290 - So seven to 10. So it's just comparable. Pretty good form factor. 00:13:30.290 --> 00:13:32.363 I like the buttons. I like the screen. 00:13:34.860 --> 00:13:38.450 The operating system, everything is kind of skewed over a little bit, 00:13:38.450 --> 00:13:42.200 which is a little bit weird. And I would like to see more controls 00:13:42.200 --> 00:13:47.600 because I'd like to be able to map the L and R buttons to the face buttons for some games on the GBA. 00:13:47.600 --> 00:13:51.770 It just makes more sense that way, even though the original hardware you would have to use those buttons. 00:13:51.770 --> 00:13:56.240 The original hardware just used that because it didn't really have a choice. 00:13:56.240 --> 00:13:59.300 But now we do. - [Man] It says all buttons are mappable though. 00:13:59.300 --> 00:14:04.580 - Yeah, but it doesn't let me do that. It just let's me mirror buttons. 00:14:04.580 --> 00:14:08.630 Maybe that's something that's coming later. They do add more features later on down the road 00:14:08.630 --> 00:14:12.370 when they release these consoles, so. But I like the screen. 00:14:12.370 --> 00:14:15.500 I like the screen quality. It's a different screen. 00:14:15.500 --> 00:14:19.410 There are some times compatibility issues with these FPGA emulators 00:14:19.410 --> 00:14:22.930 but usually analog is pretty good about fixing them. 00:14:22.930 --> 00:14:27.160 They do have a bit of a reputation in the community for boasting a hundred percent accuracy 00:14:27.160 --> 00:14:31.702 and all that kinda stuff, but it's not. But what they've created here is a really solid piece of hardware. 00:14:31.702 --> 00:14:36.980 I really dig it. And I think for $200 you could do a lot worse. 00:14:36.980 --> 00:14:42.100 You could get an Amber Knack, you could get a Retro, you can get any number of emulation handhelds, 00:14:42.100 --> 00:14:45.430 but the experience wouldn't be quite as good. This boots up in two seconds. 00:14:45.430 --> 00:14:50.140 It's the advantage of having the FPGA. Again, I'm not gonna say it's perfect, but I like it. 00:14:50.140 --> 00:14:53.160 And I would like to have more of them 00:14:53.160 --> 00:14:57.690 to kinda try out more of this link cable stuff. And I would like to have the dock 00:14:57.690 --> 00:15:02.610 to try and see what that's like, because right now the only way to couch game a GBA 00:15:02.610 --> 00:15:08.650 is either if you have the Game Boy player, which is expensive to find with a disk. 00:15:08.650 --> 00:15:14.250 The players themselves aren't all that expensive, but they're worthless without the disc and emulators. 00:15:14.250 --> 00:15:17.676 That's basically it. - [Man] The dock is a hundred bucks. (coughs) 00:15:17.676 --> 00:15:20.910 - A hundred bucks for the dock, okay. - [Man] And $30 for each adopter. 00:15:20.910 --> 00:15:24.737 - 30 bucks for each adapter, that's not bad. As for the dock... 00:15:24.737 --> 00:15:31.710 But at the same time, the dock's got an HTMI connection to it. If you don't want to faff around with old hardware, scalers, 00:15:31.710 --> 00:15:36.610 all that kinda stuff, yeah. They're not gonna say that it's the best value thing out there, 00:15:36.610 --> 00:15:40.840 but it's quality and it's convenient. 00:15:40.840 --> 00:15:45.120 And I don't really have any major complaints. 00:15:45.120 --> 00:15:48.333 Hopefully they make more for stock and hopefully they send us another one 'cause we're gonna need one. 00:15:48.333 --> 00:15:52.360 'Cause I'm heading home now. Go watch the MiSTer multi-system 00:15:52.360 --> 00:15:55.970 if you want more on this kind of FPGA goodness. 00:15:55.970 --> 00:16:00.753 Again, FPGAs are not a silver bullet, but when they work, they work real well.